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63d Congress, ) HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. I Document 

U Session. \ \ No. 823. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



SPEECH OF HON. S. D. FESS, OF OHIO, IN THE HOUSE OF EEPRE- 
SENTATIVEs/frHURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1914. 



Mahch 12, 1914. — Ordered to be printed. 



The House met at 12 o'clock noon. 

The ChapUiin, Rev. Henry N. Couden, D. D., oltered the following 
prayer : 

God our Father, make us worthy of the memory of Abraham Lincoln, a great soul 
whom Thou didst send into the world with a destiny t6 fulfill, not only for his people 
but for all the world; a suj^erb intellect; a heart of love; a divination which enabled 
him to see far beyond the vision of his contemporaries; a courage which swept him on 
without fear where others faltered; a faith which in the darkest hours failed him not. 
Surely he belongs to the ages, will live in the ages, and while he lives this Republic 
will live to bless mankind. "O Lord, God of hosts, be with us yet, lest we forget" 
his sublime example and the stujiendous work he accomplished, "That government 
of the people, by the people, for the peoj^le shall not perish from the earth." For 
Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. 

The Journal of the proceedings of yesterday was read and approved. 

The Speaker. By special order, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. 
Fess] is permitted to address the House for 30 minutes on the life 
and character of Abraham Lincoln. [Applause.] 

Mr. Fess. Mr. Speaker and Members of the House, I esteem it no 
small privilege or little honor to be permitted to speak to this group 
of legislators upon what I regard as one of the most remarkable char- 
acters in human history. Just 53 years ago yesterday, standing 
upon the platform of a train that was to bear him to Washington, 
Abraham Lincoln addressed a large concourse of people in his city 
of Springfield, in which address he said: 

Will you not pray for me that the same Arm that supported the giear Washington 
may be my support? Von with that support I can accomplish my duty; without it 
I can not do anything. 

The train stopped at the little town of Tolono, where, as in every 
town through which the train passed, a large concourse of people 
gathered. The train stopped for the engine to take water. Mr. 
Lincoln was not expected to speak, but finally he did respond to the 
great cry of the people who had gathered, and came out on the plat- 
form and said : 

I am upon a journey fraught with a great deal f>f concern to you and to me. May the 
words of the poet still be true, ''Behind the clouds the sun is still shining." Goo5-by. 
God bless vou. 



£1451 

2 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. "^ 

lie then resumed liis seat in the train. Cop\^2 

Some men make tlieir ])lace in histor}' by notable utterances,* others 
by notable deeds. Few in the world's history have the credit of both, 
and to that class belongs Abraham Lincoln. At an early time in 
his political career, speaking upon the most sensitive question be- 
fore the country then or since, he showed his courage by saying: 

Broken l)y it I, too, may be; bow to it, I never will. The probability that we may 
fail in a worthy cause is not a sufficient justification for our refusing to support it. 

In 1855, in a letter to Judge Robertson, of Kentucky, he said: 

The one question that wears upon me is, Can our coiintry permanently endure half 
slave and half free? It is too much for me. May God in his mercy .superintend the 
solution. 

Three years later, in 1858, in a convention in Springfield, 111., 
where he was nominated for the position of Senator — for the seat 
then occupied by Douglas — he announced the same principle, "I do 
not believe that this Government can permanently endure half slave 
and half free." This announcement sounded like a fire bell would 
sound at the hour of michiight in a country village. It was taken up 
by the entire country. It was quoted in the London Times and other 
j)ublications of Europe. It was pronounced by many of our states- 
men as revolutionary. Stephen A. Douglas, one of the brainiest men 
of the country, and one of the most courageous as well as patriotic, 
believed that it was a dangerous doctrine, antl announced that he 
would reply to it in his home city of Chicago on the 9th of July. 

Mr. Lincoln went to Cliicago to be present on that occasion. He 
heard one of the most powerful arguments against his position that 
probably could be made. At the close of that meeting he arose and, 
in substance, said: 

I shall be here to-morrow night at which time I will pay my respects to my friend, 
the judge, who has charged me with an attempt to array one section of the country 
against the other. I hope some of you will come out to hear my side of the story. 

The next night Mr. Lincoln greeted a great audience, upon which 
he made a profound impression. When Mr. Douglas went to Bloom- 
ington. 111., to speak, Mr. Lincoln followed liim. Mr. Douglas 
noticed while he was speaking that Mr. Lincoln was in his audience 
again. He referred to the fact with some feeling. On the afternoon 
of the 17th of Jul}?" Mr. Douglas spoke in Springfield, and on that 
night Mr. Lincoln also spoke. Then Mr. Lincoln wrote a challenge 
to Mr. Douglas; asked him to go on the same platform with him, 
divide the time, and discuss the question. The result of this was 
that a series of debates, seven in number, the most notable in Ameri- 
can political history, was arranged. In the debate, when ]\Ir. Douglas 
))ropoun(led a series of questions to Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Lincoln replied 
to them categorically, and then propounded a series, and dwelt upon 
one as the key to the entire situation. That question was: 

Can the people of a Territory in any lawful manner against the wishes of the citi- 
zens of any of the States exclude slavery Ironi within its limit prior to the adoption 
of a State constitution? 

Tie ]iresscd it. Mr. Douglas was the author of the popular sover- 
eignty sclieme, as you all know, the autliority of control of such ques- 
tions must be left to the people of the States. The friends of Mr. 
Ivincoln went to him and said, "Do not press tliat question; if 3^ou 

0. OF D. 

liAK 2? BU 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 6 

insist on an answer you can never be elected to the senatorship in this 
country." Mr. Lincohi replied, " If Mr. Douglas answers my question, 
yes or no, he can never be elected President of this Nation, and I am 
looking for larger game." That did not mean that Mr. Lincoln was 
at that time looking for himself to the Presickuicy, because that debate 
was in 1858, and as late as 1859 Mr. Lincoln replied to a letter written 
to him by a friend about being Vice President, "I am not fit to be 
Vice Presitk^nt of the United States." Mr. Lincohi in 1858 was sim- 

{)ly statmg that if Mr. Douglas answered that question he, Mr. Doug- 
as, could never be elected to the highest position in the gift of the 
people of the country. In 1859 Mr. Lincoln made that notable speech 
m Columbus, Ohio, one of the greatest contributions to the political 
literature of his day. Then in February of 1860, s))eaking m the 
heart of New York City at Cooper L^nion, he gave, I think, the finest 
type of the periodic sentence in a long speech to be found anywhere. 
From the stand])oint of the rhetorician as a critic this long speech is a 
gem in American political literature. This is the meeting over which 
the eminent poet Br3'ant presided and introduced Lincoln as a "dis- 
tinguished citizen of the Lnited States." I believe, gentlemen, that 
the Cooper Union speech is the finest exposition of the sensitive issue, 
and that it was put in the most rhetorical form of any long speech in 
our literature, and he did it with such magnanimity. He said: 

If slavery is right, then all that the South asks we can readily grant. If slavery is 
wrong, then all that the North asks the South can readily grant. Their thinking it 
right and our thinking it wrong is the precise point upon which turns this whole con- 
troversy; but thinking it wrong, as we do, we can afford to leave it where it now exists 
by virtue of the law, but can we afford to allow it to go into new territory? 

There, for the first time the real issue was presented by Mr. Lincoln; 
not the issue of the abolitionist, but the issue of Mr. Lincohi of the 
constitutional power of the Congress to control property in a Terri- 
tory, which was to give rise to an organizati m of puolic opinion that 
was not to abate until slavery was no mor(>. That was in 1860. In 
1861, in his famous inaugural address, he said: 

Friends can make laws easier than enemies can make treaties. We must not be 
enemies; we must be friends. Though passion may have strained, it must not break 
the bonds of our affection. The mystic chords of memory stretching from every 
battle field and patriot's grave to every heart and hearthstone all over this broad land 
will swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as it surely ^\dll be, by the 
better angels of our nature. 

With his keen perception of the mighty issue he was also wonder- 
fully magnanimous. 

This magnanimity that was uttered at that time had been uttered 
in the town of Steubenville, Ohio, a little wliile before, when on his 
way to WasMngton, looking across to the State of Virginia, his father's 
native State, he said to that concourse of people on the Ohio side: 

Only the river divides us, and you on the other side are just as sincere in your 
contention as we on this side. 

On this trip he addressed the Legislatures of Indiana, Ohio, New 
York, and Pennsylvania, all notable speeches, teeming with evidence 
of his grasp of the situation facing him. When he reached Phila- 
delphia, out in front of old Independence Hall, he said, on the occa- 
sion of raising the American Flag over the hall: 

What principle has kept our States so long together? It is not the mere fact o f 
separation fiom the mother country, but it is the principle found in the Declaration 
of Independence, penned by the immortal Jefferson and adopted in this hall, that gave 



4 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

promise nut alone to the peoj^le of our own country but to all the people of all the 
world that ere long the weight shall be lifted from the shoulders of all men and all 
shall have an equal chance. Now, my fellow citizens, can the Nation be saved upon 
that basis? If it can and I can help to save it, I am the happiest man in it, but if 
it can not I was about to say I would rather be assassinated on this sj^ot than to. sur- 
render *it. 

That was on the 22d day of February, 1861, in the famous Inde- 
pendence City, out in front of Independence Hall. I mention these 
historical utterances, so notable and significant in their meaning, 
because I would like to haye this body recall this wonderful ability 
in expression, the like of which probably is not know^i in any pohtical 
orator or figure in our country. Why, it was none other than Prof. 
Bailey, a professor of rhetoric in a famous American college, who had 
been so charmed with the pure EngUsh of this plain statesman of the 
West that he sou^^ht an interyiew to ascertain the secret of his power. 
Mr. Lincoln at first expressed surprise that he had any power in 
utterance, but when pressed he substantially said: ''Well, all I can 
remember is that when neighbors would come to my father's house 
and talk to father in language I did not understand, I would become 
offended, sometimes, and I would find myself going to bed that night 
unable to sleep. I bounded it on the north, south, east, and west 
until I had caught the idea, and then I said it myself, and when I said 
it I used the language I would use when talking to the boys on the 
street." Prof. Bailey said: "That is one of the most splendid edu- 
cational principles I haye eyer receiyed from any man." To which 
Mr. Lincoln expressed great surprise. 

Mr. Lmcoln's ability to express the English language consisted in 
the use of the small word. Eighty-fiye per cent of his words are 
monosyllabic. He neyer employed a big word when a little one would 
do. He neyer clouded his thought by a multiplicity of words. His 
sentences were always short and their meaning neyer inyolyed. In 
a word, he neyer spoke to be heard, but always to be understood ; and 
therefore he was not always elegant from the standpoint of the 
rhetorician, but wonderfully expressiye. For example, he would 
say, "1 dumped it into a hole"; but Douglas, the rhetorician, would 
say, "I deposited it into a cavity," w^hich is a good deal better from 
the standard rule of expression. Lmcoln would say, "I dug a ditch" ; 
Douglas would say, "I excavated a channel." Lincoln said, "My 
defeat by Douglas in 1858 was due to bad luck; I ran at the wrong 
time" ; Douglas said, "It was due to a strange fortuitous combination 
of importune contingencies that nobody could have foreseen." 
Here stands Stephen A. Douglas, a master of rhetoric; Abraham 
Lincoln, a master of logic; Stephen A. Douglas, elotpient in words; 
Abraham Lincoln, elocpient in thought; Stephen A. Douglas appealing 
to expediency; Abraham Lmcoln, appealing to right. Douglas said, 
"I do not care whether you vote slavery up or vote it down." 
Lincoln said, "I care very much about what most people care most 
about. " He turned his back upon his audience and spoke to Douglas, 
"Is it not a false philosophy to build a system upon the basis that 
you do not care anything about what most people care most about ?" 
It was for that sentence that Mr. Douglas paid him such a tribute in 
three weeks after the close of those debates. Mr. Lmcoln was power- 
ful in this series of debates, and it was here that his wonderfid ability 
as a thinker and debater was first disclosed to the pi blic. I say to 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 5 

you men of Congress that Abraham Lmcohi had not an equal on the 
Xmerican platform in the use of pure iVngio-Saxon. 

If you think that I am overstating, I have two items of evidence 
that any lawyer will accept as fairh' conclusive. In Oxford Univer- 
sity, England, you will hear the finest English taught and spoken of 
any place in the world. An American visiting this great seat of learn- 
ing will be led to a corridor wliere can be read one of the famous 
letters written by this man, known to the world as unlettered, or 
illiterate, because he was not a collegiate, the letter to Mrs. Bixby, 
the mother of five sons, all of whom gave their lives for their country. 

Dear Madam: I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement 
of tiie adjutant general of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have 
died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words 
of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. 
But I can not refrain from tendering to you the consolation which may be found in the 
thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage 
the anguish of your bereavement and leave you only the cherished memory of the 
loved and lost, and the solemn jiride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacri- 
fice on the altar of freedom. 

Yours, very sincerely and respectfully, 

Abraham Lincoln. 

This letter, thus permanently preserved, is j^ronounced b}^ the 
savants of Oxford as one of the finest letters of condolence ever writ- 
ten in our language. Note its beauty, its purity, its subhmity. 

If that is not sufficient e^^dence, then go to the British Museum, 
where can be found books enough, if put on a single shelf, to reach 40 
miles. Ask the authorities there what their judgment is as to the 
finest short speech in the English language. You will be handed 
at once this splendid piece of rhetoric and high mark of literary 
appreciation, as well as statesmanlike delivery, at Gettvsburg, 
November 19, 1863: 

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new 
Nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created 
equal. 

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that Nation, or any nation 
so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle field of 
that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for 
those who here gave their lives that that Nation might live. It is altogether fitting 
and proper that we should do this. 

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow 
this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated 
it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long 
remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for 
us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who 
fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated 
to the great task remaining before us — that from fhese honored dead we take increased 
devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we 
here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this Nation under 
God shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the 
people, for the people shall not perish from the earth. 

When he finished, the orator of the day, Edward Everett, walked 
over to the President, took his hand, and in substance said: "Mr. 
President, if I could congratulate myself upon the belief that in two 
and a quarter hours I had been enabled to put the issue as clearly 
as you have done it in two and a quarter minutes, I woidd regard 
myself as a happy man." 

This speech the British Museum authorities regard as one of the 
finest short speeches uttered in the English language. Who is this 



6 • ABRAHAM UXCOl.X. 

man that lie could thus speak ami write? Born in a hut, of the most 
humble surroundings, at the age of 7 he accompanied his parents 
and sister into Indiana, where they lived one winter in an open camp 
with but three ;;ides to it. And yet, without ever having, as a pupil, 
a lead pencil or a piece of paper, a slate pencil or a slate, without 
having gone to school but six months all told, according to his own 
statement, here is a man thus starting with no convenience who has 
reached a plane, an ability to speak the English language, not yet 
reached bv scholars of the day. Where is the secret? I think that 
it might be found in the sort of books he read. What are they? 

The one book with which he was quite familiar was King James's 
version of the Bible. I once heard Parks Cadman, pastor of the 
greatest Congregational Church in the world, say that Abraham Lin- 
coln's verbal knowledge of the Bible was not equaled by the theo- 
logians. I would not state that upon my own authority, but I cite 
it upon his authority. He knew Shakespeare, and in the darkest 
hours of the Nation's life, in the midst of great depression, often when 
the Cabinet was in session, Mr. Lincoln would throw himself back in 
an armchair and quote page after page of Shakespeare, until the 
scholarly Seward would turn to him and say: "Why, Mr. President, 
our understanding has been from the beginning that you have never 
gone to school, and yet you quote Shakespeare as I do not, and I am 
regarded as somewhat of a Shakespearean scholar." 

Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress was another book that he read. 
Feed a growing mind upon the English of these texts and you will 
have a choice of English. I concede the speeches before mentioned 
to be a high rank of expression, but I think the high-water mark was 
reached on another occasion, when looking back over four years of 
awful war, a period of the bitterest hatred and almost vicious calumny, 
on the part of his foes at least, and during which period no man's 
heart was bleeding more than his, he said: 

Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid 
against the other. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has 
been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. If we shall suppose that 
American slavery is one of those offenses which in the providence of God must needs 
come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to 
remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due 
to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those 
divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? 

Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may 
speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled up 
by the bondman's 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop 
of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn by the sword, as was 
said 3,000 years ago, so still it must be said: "The judgments of the Lord are true and 
righteous altogether." With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness 
in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are 
now in, to bind up the Nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the 
battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish 
a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. 

Here is one of the finest prose poems in the literature of our 
language, and, in my judgment, is the highest reach in refinement of 
utterance we have from this remarkable leader of men not only in 
thought but as well in deed. 

And I think of how he suffered m the Wliite House as the head of 
the Nation, so distracted by civil war and he helpless to end the 
strife. One night he said to Frank Carpenter at the dead hour of 



ABEAHAM LINCOLjST. 7 

midnight, standing with his hands in this shape [indicating]: "Oh, 
Carp, Carp, what would I give to-night in exchange for this weari- 
some hospital of pain and woe that they call the White House for 
the place that is occupied by some poor boy that sleeps under the 
sod in a southern battle field? I can not stand this thing much 
longer. I have got to have some relief." When I read from Car- 
penter, the painter of the famous emancipation picture, I mstinctively 
say: ''Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how oft would I have gathered thee 
as a hen gathereth her chicks under her wings, but ye would not." 

Oh, my dissatisfied countrymen, you who can not understand the 
suffering and the heartbeats, the great distress of the head of the 
Nation, how changed would be your attitude if you could but see him 
in his agony for the Nation. If we could have understood his suffer- 
ings, we would not have had the feehngs of bitterness that were so 
often expressed. My friends, this hatred was not confined to any 
one section of the country, as you well know. I was rocked in a 
cradle over which was sung the lullaby: 

Old Abe Lincoln is dead and gone. 
Hurrah! Hurrah! 

And I am not the only one in the State of Ohio who was taught 
that he was not a patriot. But when I come to look into his words 
and to study his acts and with regard for his magnanimity, together 
with his intellectuality, I can easily understand why, in the lapse of 
half a century, there is such universal approval now of the charac- 
istics of that great man in all ]>arts not only of our Nation but of the 
world. 

I once asked one of the best editors in this country or in an}' other, 
Charles A. Dana, who knew Mr. Lincoln as perhaps no other man 
knew him during the period that covered the war. what he thought 
was Lincoln's secret of greatness. Quickly he said: ''His control of 
men." And then he added: "If a man can not control other men, 
then his power is limited to what he can do alone. On the other 
hand, if he can control men his power is multi])lied just to the number 
of men he controls." 

In view of this theory I am not so sure but that we might possil^ly 
for a moment pause to fix our eyes upon tho White House now, ^dth 
reference to that quality of leadership. But this is not the j^lace nor 
the hour for making comparisons. Th(\v might be misunderstood. 
Mr. Lincoln had that abiHty to differ from men and yet to win them. 
Note how he struggled with, the great commoner, Thaddeus wStevens. 
When Lincoln insisted upon his method of Reconstruction, which 
Stevens denounced as his shorthand method, destined to swamp the 
American Congress by Confederate leaders, Lincoln put it in this 
homely way, or substantially in these terms: ''Stevens, you want 
what I want, but we do not go after it in the same way. Concede that 
my policy, which you criticize, is now in its beginning to what the 
pohcy is when it is finished, as an egg is to the chicken when it is 
hatched, do you not think you will get that egg quicker by hatching 
it than by smashing it?" A homely illustration that carries in it a 
sound philosophy. 

That is an example of the way he had of reaching Mr. Stevens. 
He had his own way of dealing with the leaders of the day, such men 
as Mr. Seward, and especially Mr. Stanto7i, both of whom he regarded 



8 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

as the greatest Secretaries- of their respective departments. In the 
earl}' part of the administration the country looked upon Mr. Lincoln 
as a much inferior man to Mr. Seward. None knew this better than 
the great Secretary. This explains the strange suggestion of Seward. 
He reminded Lincoln that after so long the Government was still 
mthout a policy, and said that while he did not seek it, if the Presi- 
dent desired, he would assume the responsibility. The reply by Lin- 
coln is historic, and discloses his rare talent to control men. The 
policy was forthcoming, but it was not that of any Cabinet officer. 
A similar instance is when he rejected Seward's proposed adjustment 
of the Trent affair and directed it himself by taking Seward's proposed 

?lan and blue-penciling two-thirds of it as useless and dangerous, 
n spite of this -wide difference between them, the time came when 
Mr. Seward said, 'M know the men of my time, and I believe Mr. 
Lincoln was- truly the best man I ever met in public life." 

On the night of the second election quite a scene took place between 
Lincoln and Stanton. Dana said, "Whitelaw Reid came in, and I, 
as a matter of courtesy, withdrew and went into another room, where 
Stanton was. It was not long before I noticed that Stanton was 
quite indignant. He was walking the floor greatly disturbed. I said 
to him, 'What troubles you, Mr. Secretary?' and he pointed his hand 
through the door toward Lincoln." Dana said that Lincoln at that 
moment was a very comical figure. He was sitting leaning back 
against the wall, his legs crossed, and laughing convulsively. He had 
just read to Reid sometliing from the writings of Petroleum V. Nasby, 
the editor and humorist of the Toledo Blade, at tKat time almost as 
popular a ^\Titer as was Mark Twain later. '^ Stanton noticing that 
he was reading Petroleum V. Nasby seemed so angry," says Mr. Dana, 
"that he turned to me and said, 'Look there. There sits the man 
around whom the heartstrings of this Nation are wrapped to-night, 
being amused over a damned mountebank.'" E\ddently Mr. Lin- 
coln must have heard him, for he immediately called to Mr. Stanton, 
"Mr Secretary, have you ever read anything written by Petroleum 
V. Neesby ?" And Whitelaw Reid, who was sitting by, said, " Nasby; 
Mr. President, Nasby," when Mi\ Lincoln repeated "Nasby." Mi*. 
Stanton replied, "No; I haven't time for such buncombe." Mr. Lin- 
coln said, "Here is some buncombe that you would enjoy." He 
added, "Nasby says there are three kinds of fools. There is the nat- 
ural fool and the educated fool, and when you take a natural fool and 
try to educate him, you have a damphool." [Laughter.l Dana said 
Stanton did not enjoy the joke at all. [Renewed laughter.l 

Mr. Stanton seemed so different from Mr. Lincoln, and people are 
speculating now as to whether they were friendly to one another. 
The difference was one of temperament. They were equally sincere 
and patriotic. The brusque demeanor of the Secretary was ever in 
sharp contrast with the childlike kindness and affectionate regard 
of the great President. The two men quite frequently clashed for 
the moment over policies. These differences usually grew out of 
Lincoln's pardoning habit. You will recall that Lincoln ordered 
some persons that had been imprisoned at Baltimore upon the charge 
of treason for the sale of goods to the Confederacy to be liberated, 
against the wishes of Stanton, and Judge Holt 

[Here the hammer fell.] 



ABRAHAM LIXCOLX, 9 

The Speaker. The time of the gentleman from Ohio has expired. 

Mr. Young of North Dakota. The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Fessl 
should have an extension of an hour. 

Mr. Willis. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that my col- 
league be allowed to proceed to the conclusion of his remarks. 

The Speaker. The gentleman from Ohio []\Ir. Willis] asks unani- 
mous consent that his colleague [Mr. Fess] be permitted to proceed 
without limit. Is there objection ? [After a pause.] The Chair 
hears none. 

Mr. Fess. Mr. Speaker, I thank you and the Members of the House 
for this courtesy, and I shall certainly respect it enough not to keep 
you very long. [Cries of "Go on!"] That gavel knocked out of my 
mind what I was saying. [Laughter.] 

A Member. You were talking about certain kinds of fools. [Laugh- 
ter.] 

Mr. Fess. It was the incident over in Baltimore. It was said that 
Judge Holt, of Kentucky, went over in confidence on the order of 
the President and made some arrangement to let the people out with- 
out regard to Mr. Stanton's wishes. Mr. Stanton was very much 
enraged, and he called Mr. Holt, a subordinate, "on the carpet"; 
but Judge Holt defended himself on the ground that the President 
had ordered him to do it. It is reported that Mr. Stanton said, "Did 
Lincoln order you to do that?" Holt said he did. Stanton hesi- 
tated a moment and then said, "Holt, the only thing left us is to get 
rid of that baboon in the White House." 

That is a very serious statement to make on the floor of this 
House when regarded from the standpoint of the relation between 
chief and subordinate, but it is in the reminiscences. When the 
matter came to the notice of Mr. Lincohi he said, in good humor, 
''Did Stanton say that?" He was assured that he had; and another 

Eerson speaking with him said, "I would not endure the insult." 
incoln said, "Insult? That is no insult. All he said was that I 
was a baboon, and that is only a matter of opinion, sir," and then 
added, "and the tiling that concerns me most is that Stanton said 
it, and I find he is usually right." [Laughter and applause.] 

Oh, such magnanimity, when a difference clothes itself in language 
of insult as well as ridicule, in such a great soul; to dift'er from men 
and still hold their respect to the last was a quaUty possessed in 
abundance by the great Lincoln. 

On one occasion when Stanton chided the President for allowing a 
mother-in-law to impose upon him on behalf of her daughter whose 
husband was to be shot for desertion, in wliich the Secretary ex- 
pressed a doubt whether the old lady really cared about the fate of 
the man, Mr. Lincoln rephed, "It may be she did not. I did not 
see the lady while she was spealdng. I only saw the poor young 
woman who was so soon to become a widow unless I interposed." 

Here is but one of scorts of incidents to show his magnanimous 
spirit to his inferior, and at the same time that beautiful temper of 
m. rcy of which many were beneficiaries. 

In evidence of this po^\ « r ov^ r men note this incident : A retired 
Presbyterian minister said to nif rec ntly, "My inspiration and 
success as a preacher cam( from Lincoln, when after I had made ray 
report to Congress of the work of the Sanitary and Christian Com- 
mission, Mr. Lincoln said to me, ' The good God has blessed you, 



10 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

yoiinf? mail, with power to influence men. Go on in the way you 
have started. Pay more attention to the hearts of men rather than 
to their heads.' " That became my guiding principle. 

\^'liat is the secret of Mr. Lincoln's ability to control men like 
Seward and Stanton and Stevens, and other men who were so won- 
derfully different in temperament and eminently superior to him in 
all that went to make up modern standards ? I think I can give a 
solution to the mystery. It is in a combination of two qualities that 
are usually found in leadership. The one is that wonderful fund of 
humor and the other is that deep sense of pathos. At one moment 
Mr. Lincoln would make you laugh. At another moment you would 
want to cry. Strange as it may seem, these seeming contradictories 
are generally present in the same person. If Lincoln was the most 
comical man in public life, he was certainly the saddest. The world 
tires of the person who plays on but one string. 

I distinctly lecall an incident that is told by Carpenter. Mr. Lin- 
coln frequently went out here to the hospital near Washington, not 
simply to be in the presence of sorrow but to comfort the wounded 
soldiers, many of whom were dying by the inch. On one occasion 
he had spent a good deal of time out there — most of the day. Just 
as he was ready to get into the carriage to return, somebody rushed 
out and said to one of the men with him, "I wish you would tell the 
President that in a part of the hospital that he did not visit there is 
a Confederate soldier, and he is dying; he wants to see the President." 
The matter was referred to the President, and he said, "I shall go 
back." He excused himself for a moment, and w^as led back to 
where the Confederate soldier was lying upon the cot, and when he 
came to the sufterer all that he could hear the soldier say was, "I 
knew they were mistaken; I knew they were mistaken." 

Evidently he had been told that Mr. Lincoln was the sort of a man 
that I had been taught he was, and he had found that he was not. 
When Mr. Lincoln took his hand and asked him what he could do, 
he said, "The surgeon says I can not get well; I do not know anybody 
here, and I wanted to see you before I died." \^^ien Mr. Lincoln 
asked him what he could do, there was something said by the poor 
boy in regard to what he wanted sent home, and then Mr. Lincoln 
stooped and took his hand in his two. The President, standmg m 
that fashion, said, "'Now, my boy, is there anything else I can do? 
I have been here most of the day; I am busy, and I must go." The 
boy said in broken tones, ''Oh, I thought, if you did not mind, you 
might stay and see me through." And there stood the President 
bending over the dying soldier and copious tears dropping upon his 
coat sleeves. 

Men of this House, that is the most beautiful picture in American 
history. If I were a painter and wanted to paint Lincoln, I would 
have to seize upon some particular moment of time, because you 
can not j)aint duration in a picture, and I would seize the moment 
when the President of this Nation, the mightiest Republic on earth, 
stooped and wept over a dying Confederate soldier, clying away from 
home. That is a most beautiful representation of the real Lincoln. 
[Applause.] 

He has been misunderstood in regard to the slavery agitation. 
Mr. Lincoln's greatest work, gentlemen, was in the preservation of 
the L^nion. Do vou not remember in 1863 what a bitter letter he 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 11 

received from Horace Greeley, published in the New York Tribune 
as an open letter to the President, in which Greeley called him "an 
opportunist"? Mr. Lincoln replied to it — and I want to give 3'ou 
exactly his reply; and, therefore, you will allow me to read that reply. 
It is one of the suggestive utterances of his life. He replied: 

As to the i)olicy I seem to be pursuing, I have not meant to leave anyone in doubt. 
I would sa^•e the Union. I would save it in the shortest way under the Constitution. 
The sooner the national authority can be restored the nearer the Union will be the 
Union as it was. If there be those who would not save the I' nion unless they could 
at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who 
would not save the Uiiion unless at the same time they could destroy slavery, I do 
not agree with them. My paramount object is to save the Union and not either to 
save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the ITnion without freeing any slave, I 
would do it. If I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it. 

Then he added : 

• I am ready to accept new views as soon as they are j)roved to be true views. 

I do not mean here to minimize the title of the "great emancipator." 
I simply mean that the one supreme purpose of his career was to 
preserve the Union. This does not and should not detract from his 
achievement as the leader who, by the stroke of iiis pen, lifted a race 
out of human chattelhood into the atmosphere of American citizen- 
ship. But that achievement was destined to take place; if not by 
his hand, then by another's. The institution of slavery was indicted 
by the civilization of the centuries and had to succumb. However, 
this could not be said of the preservation of the Union. The greatest 
single achievement in the history of civil government in the world 
is the preservation of republican form of government. Since the 
close of the Civil War this idea has spread over the world like the 
waters cover the sea. There is not a single country that is not feeling 
the mighty impulses for self-government, the finest example of which 
is our own Republic. In fixing Lincoln's place in history it will not 
be so much the emancipator of a race as the savior of a nation and 
repubUcan government on the earth. Both of these accomplishments 
demanded the best talent of head and heart. 

He had other elements of statesmanship. His heart throbs for 
liberty never carried him to the shoals of license. On the other 
hand, reverence for law was fundamental with him. On one occasion 
he said : 

Let reverence for the law be breathed by every .American mother to the babe that 
prattles (m her lap; let it be taught in schools and colleges; let it be preached from 
the pulpit, prf)claimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And, 
in short, let it become the political religion of the Nation, and let the old and the 
young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay, of all sexes and tongues and 
colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars. 

When he was criticized for the appointment of vStanton, who had 
not supported him, a friend said to him, "Why, Stanton has not 
been in your favor." Mr. Lincoln said. "That is no matter. I met 
him down in Cincinnati in a lawsuit where I tested his mettle, and 
I know his ]K)wer." And then the interested party said, "But you 
are the first President of a new party, and you would have a splendid 
opportunity to build up a political organization." Members of 
Congress listen to Lincoln in reply: "We will save the Union first 
and build a party out of what is left." That is another element of 
statesmanship, it seems to me. 



12 ABRAHAM LIJvCOLN. 

On the othci- hand, notico the luuuor. May I give you an incident 
that Dana gave me 'i Lincoln was pestered with office seekers, strange 
to say, in that day as we are not so much ( ?) in this. These office 
seekers came from every place. One day Mr. Lincoln saw three 
men coming up the walk toward the White House. At the time he 
seemed in exceptional spirits with humor bubbling over. Lincoln 
was looking out of the window. He said, "Dana, look. Those three 
men have been here before. This is the third or fourth time they 
have come. They want an office. I do not know even where it is. 
I do not know whether it is in Missouri or Illinois. It would not make 
any difference whether Tom, Dick, or Harry had it. It mil not pay 
over $180 a year." Dana urged him not to receive them, when 
Lincoln replied, "Oh, yes; I will receive them." 

About that time the man whose duty it was to announce callers to 
the President came in and told him there were three men from the 
West who wanted to see him, and asked what he should say to them. 
Lincoln said, "Bring them in and let them sit down here." I wish I 
could tell this story as Dana told it, but I can not. Dana said the 
three men came in and took their seats, and Mr. Lincoln, after greet- 
ing them, said to them, "Excuse me, gentlemen, until I finish a story 
I was tellmg Dana." He had not been telling any story at aU, but 
he began: "I think I was about 13 years old. Our fashion was to 
meet in Sunday school, where we would read sometimes in the Old 
Testament and sometimes m the New. On this particular day we 
were reading m the Old about the three Hebrew children. In that 
class we always would stand in line ; the first boy would read and then 
the next, and if anybody made a mistake the fellow next to him would 
correct him, turn him down, and go up. There was one fellow in the 
class, about as tall as I was, who never had learned to read, and he 
always stood at the foot. (Just excuse me, gentlemen, in a few 
minutes I will be through with this.) Wlien it came this fellow's 
turn to read, he read something like this, holding his finger on the 
page to keep the place, and reading in a loud monotonous tone, hesi- 
tating on every word : ' And — a — part — of — the — kingdom — 

was — to — be — ruled — over — by — by — by ' ' Well,' said 

the teacher, 'read on, read on.' 'By — Meshach, Shadrach, 

and Abed-nego.' (Just excuse me, gentlemen, in a few minutes I 

will be through.) Tlicn the next boy read, and then the next one, and 
it came around to this boy at the foot again, and the teacher said to 
him, 'Read that fourteenth verse.' It was the same verse. So he 
read the same verse again, and in the same hesitating way: 'And — 
a — part — of — the — kingdom — was — to — be — ruled — over — 

by — by — by well, if there don't come them same three gol 

durned fools again.' " [Laughter.] 

The leader said, "Mr. President, we will come some time when you 
are not so busy." As soon as they wore out Lincoln said to Dana, 
"Didn't we fetch 'em this time ?" 

If you link the quality of humor, which is always present, to the 
other quality of pathos, which was instinctive -svith him, you have the 
elements in combination that made him the leader of men. It would 
be easy to ilhist rate the two qualities by the great number of incidents 
similar to these I have mentioned in his life. 

Then there are two otlier abiding ((ualities in the man that I find 
in my study of him that I tliink this House ought now to think sibont. 



ABKAHAM LINCOLN. 13 

They are the fuiithimeiital qualities that make his luiine an increasingly 
important one in our history. The first one is faith in the people. 
I do not believe America shows in her history any man who had 
ecjual faith in the common goodness of mankind. It welled up in both 
word and deed upon every hand, in season and out of season. I have 
the greatest admiration for Samuel Adams, of Massachusetts — ^the 
man of the town meeting and one of the country's most distinguished 
Democrats, past or present. I have also the greatest admiration for 
Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia, the author of the Declaration of In- 
dependence and the founder of the Democratic Party. 

As a man who has lived all Ms life in the study of history, I have a 
wonderful admiration for the hold those men had upon the people, 
in their faith in the people. But, Members of this House, with due 
regard for the faith of the fathers, I think Abraham Lincoln was in 
the truest sense a man of the people, one among the people, and in 
sympathy wdth the people beyond any man in our history. I do not 
think any man can come to his shoulders in this attribute if measured 
by w^hat he said, by what he did, by what he really was in that respect. 
When a man said to him, ''The people will go wrong on this matter," 
he replied, ''Intellectually, probably they may; morally, never." 
The collective wisdom expressed in morals is always better than in- 
dividual wisdom. "In the multitude of counsel there is safety," 
said he, quoting it from the Good Book. I could give you numerous 
suggestions falling from his lips, expressions like these: "God must 
have loved the common people, for He made so many of them." 
"You can fool all of the people some of the time, some of the people 
all of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time." 
You know people have said it was Barnum who said that. It was 
not. It was Lincoln. It is Lincolnian. He believed in the people. 
In other words, he did not think the Government was going to the 
bowwows if attempts were made at some innovation, or changes 
were inaugurated in the interest of the public. He never failed to see 
the distinction between an attem])t to suppress public opinion and 
to direct public opinion. The first is unwise; the second )s rational. 
He fearlessly indicted the cowardice of such procedure. After the 
fugitive-slave law was made a ])art of the Compromise of 1850, both 
of the leading platforms. Whig and Democratic, declared that the 
Compromise was the settlement of the slavery issue and forbade its 
further discussion. Lincoln knew such cowardice was like resolving 
the tide should cease to flow. Our business is to direct public opinion 
in the right channels, and not to attempt to suppress it. That was 
Lincolnian. 

Another quality of his nature was his deep religious convictions. 
I do not believe we ever had any man in the presidential chair who 
was so profoundly religious in nature as Abraham Lincoln. Prof. 
Brooks, who was at the head of the educational movement in Illinoi+s, 
came to him with the query, "Mr. Lincohi, w^e have been discussing 
your religious convictions." Mr. Lincoln said, "Well, what about 
it?" "We wondered how much time, if any, you devote to your 
relationship with your God." Mr. Lincoln turned to him and said, 
"Professor, I spend more time upon the thought of my relationship 
with my God than upon all other (piestions combined." That was 
Lincoln at a time when he had no reason to assert anything untrue 
about his belief. You will remember that when the brilliant, peerless 



14 ABRAPIAM LINCOLN. 

leader. Stonewall Jackson, was almost within reach of this Capital 
Cit}', and the Cabinet was xory nuich alarmed, Mr. Lincoln said, 
"The thint; I foar about Stonewall Jackson is that he is a praying 
general; he jirays before he goes into battle." A high tribute by the 
head of the Nation to that peerless soldier. 

Mr. Lincoln had an abiding faith in God. Notice liis statement 
at Springfield when he bade farewell to his neighbors on February 11, 
1801, and called upon them to give him their prayers. Notice his 
statement in his first inaugural: 

Is not a firm reliance upon Him who has never yet forsaken our favored land suffi- 
cient to adjust our differences? 

Notice him in his second inaugm-al. His judgments are righteous 
altogether. Hear him saying to Brooks, '*I would be the veriest 
blockhead if I thought I could get through with a single day's business 
without relying upon Him who doeth all things well." 

I want to say to this body of legislators, from the standpoint 
of a close study of the life of Mr. Lincohi, that his was the most 
profoundly religious nature of any of our great Presidents. Why, 
then, you ask, did he not belong to a church? I answer you, 
I hoj)e as a consistent member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
Abraham Lincoln was too great a soul to be circumscribed by the 
narrow denominational lines of the day in which he lived. [Ap- 
plause.] I say it not in antagonism to churches, for I believe in 
them and I am a member of one of them. But the bitterness that 
was then felt between branches of the Christian church was such 
that it was pretty hard for a man of that great heart of his to sub- 
scribe to a good deal of this bitterness. But let no man, because 
of this, quote him as against religion. He was profoundly religious, 
and alwa3^s gave his voice and influence to the things for which 
the church stands. 

He once said : 

Show me the church which writes over its portals "Thou shalt love thy God with 
all thy strength of heart and mind, and thy neighbor as thyself," and I will join that 
church. 

I close with this suggestion: As Mr. Lincoln was closing his 
career he was more concerned about the reconstruction of the 
seceded States than any other one subject. He made his last 
speech from the Executive Mansion on the 11th of April. He 
spoke about reconstruction, and said that that was one of the 
things that had most deeply impressed his heart during all these 
years, and then he said, in substance: 

Let us not now enter into a controversy as to whether the States are in the Union 
or out of the Union. That question can only have the mischievous effect of divid- 
ing our friends. We all admit that the States are out of their practical relations 
with the Union. Let us strive to reinstate the relation as it existed before the war, 
and when that is done, then let us each one alone take pleasure, if there is any 
pleasure in it, in seeing whether they were ever away from home. Finding them- 
selves safely at home, it would be utterly immaterial whether they had ever been 
abroad. Let us not bring tliat up now, for it can only end in mischief. 

'I'o the vSouth he said: 

Jt may be my duty to make some new announcement to the people of the South. 

That announcement was never made. Four days later the bvdlet 
of the assassin closed his Hps forever, and he was not to make an 



ABRAHAM IJNCOLX. 15 

announcement on that or any other great subject. But the one 
situation he yearned so much to see adjusted was the preservation 
of the Union as it had been before 1861. His death removed the 
one insurmountable obstacle to the success of radical measures in 
reconstruction. As I once said before, his rare magnanimity, illu- 
mined by an intellect equally rare, i)eculiarly fitted him to i)ilot 
the ship through the rough breakers that hugged the shore of nation- 
ality as he had safely brought it through the stormy Civil War. lie 
was broad enough to know that too much national prerogative was 
despotism, and too much State rights might lead to anarchy among 
the States; I want to say that when the bullet of the assassin laid 
him low the best friend the South had in authority had fallen. 
[Applause.] Jeflerson Davis said that next to the fall of the Con- 
federacy the death of Lincoln was the greatest stroke the South ever 
received. 

What a beautiful thing it is to contemplate the change of attitude 
toward him. Fifty years ago many a child of that day in the North 
was rocked in the cradle over which was sung the lullaby: 

Old Abe Lincoln is dead and gone, 
Hurrah! Hurrah! 

Then the people were divided. To-day, 50 years after, our differ- 
ences, born in the heat of a great national issue that precipitated 
war, are no more. His name is spoken in reverence by a reunited 
Nation, whose finest product is embodied in the great war President. 

His yearning for the cessation of strife was in his every impulse. 
When the scene of Appomattox had passed, no one was so happy 
over the prospects of a return to peace as he. 

But in a moment of rejc.icing all was changed. Another tragedy 
was to be added to the series of tragedies. It was not his to hve to 
see the fruits of the war, and to so guide its reconstruction as to re- 
build safely with the highest honor to all our people. No; it was his 
to die. He was surrounded by friends, including his official family, 
as his spirit went home to its God with whf)m it had kept so closely 
throughout the dark hours of civil war. 

Stanton, at the head of the bed, now virtually the heael of the 
Nation, Sewaiel ha^dng been attacked in his sick room, broke the 
silence of death when he saiel, ''Now he belongs to the ages.'' 

The next ela^' the great Secretary, who had so often differrel from 
his great chief, looked upon his face, now asleep in death, and pointing 
his hanel towarel him said, "There sleeps the mightiest man that ever 
ruled a nation." 

It was thus 1' ft to one of his ciitics, who differeel with anel yet loved 
him, to pass the highest encomium upon him. 

In my judgment Abraham Lincoln is the truest type of the Ameri- 
can statesman, the br(;adest in comprehension, tlie sweetest in dis- 
position, the eleepcst in humanity of secular histoiy. Anel now as we 
are facing to-elay as great problems as ever face el him in his elay, let 
us renew our obligations to our common country by pledging our- 
selves in his woids our last full measure of elevotion in the hope that 
the Government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall 
not peiish from the earth. [Applause.] 

\ IVIi-. GouLDEN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent t) addr(>ss 
'he House for two minutev'^. 



16 ABRAHAM LIXCOLN. 

Tht- Speaker. The gentleman from New York asks unanimous 
consent to address the House for two minutes. Is there objection? 

There was no objection. 

Mr. GoFLDEN. Mr. Speaker, I feel that I should apologize to the 
House, as well as to the distinguished gentleman from Ohio, who has 
just completed his splendid patriotic address. Perhaps I am the only- 
man on the floor of the House wlio Jieard Lincoln's famous speech at 
Gettysburg. [Applause.] That is my excuse for injecting myself 
at this time. By the grace of God and the will of the Speaker, nine 
veterans of the Ci\Til War, six who wore the gray and three who wore 
the blue, all that are left of that memorable struggle, were honored 
by an appointment to accompany the Vice President and himself 
to the fiftieth anniversary of the great Battle of Gettysburg last July. 
While standing there on the memorable spot on which Mr. Lincoln 
stood 50 years before, I heard that famous speech of Ms. I first 
heard — and I can assure my colleagues that I was tired and weary — 
the splenchd oration of Edward Everett, a brilhant speaker of that 
day, wliicli lasted two hours. I knew, in my youthful impatience, 
I hoped that he would finish quickly so that the great war President 
might be heard, but lie did not. He truly made a magnificent speech. 
I want to ask, IVIr. Speaker and gentlemen of the House, how many of 
you can recall or could even repeat even portions of the beautiful ora- 
tion of Edward Everett on that occasion, while on the other hand the 
brief, toucliing speech of President Lincoln is known to every school- 
boy and every sclioolgirl, not only in this country but in many others. 
I stood within 30 feet of the platform and heard the President. As 
Mr. Lincoln stepped to the front, ^^^th that pathetic, sad look upon 
his face, the great audience of 25,000 people started an applause loud 
and long. A smile went over his countenance, and when he smiled 
you forgot the homeliness of his rugged countenance. He then made 
that famous address of liis, wliich lasted less than three minutes, 
making a most profound impression on his hsteners, at least one-lialf 
of whom could hear him cUstinctly. I saw Edward Everett step over 
and shake liis hand, but I could not hear what lie said; but we are 
told what he did say was that lie would give his two hours of effort 
for the three minutes of Mr. lincoln; and he was right. That was a 
great occasion, upon a battle field that more than 200,000 as brave 
men as ever Uved fought three days for what they thought was right. 
It was one of the greatest in the history of this or any other Nation, 
marked to-day bj^ more than 500 splendid monuments. 

We do well, Mr. Speaker to call to mind the deeds of our great men, 
those who have so greatly aided in making the Nation a world power, 
respected everywhere, and I think none carries with it a greater lesson 
of patriotic sentiment so worthy of emulation than that of the 
lamented martyred President of the United States — Abraham Lii , 
coin. [I^oud applause.] 

o 



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